This Court has not yet fixed the standard by which to determine
when a danger shall be deemed clear; how remote the danger
may be and
yet be deemed present, and what degree of evil shall be deemed
sufficiently substantial to justify resort to abridgement of
free speech and assembly
as the means of protection. To reach sound conclusions on these
matters, we must bear in mind why a State is, ordinarily, denied
the power
to prohibit dissemination of social, economic and political doctrine
which a vast majority of its citizens believes to be false and
fraught with evil consequence.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the
State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that,
in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over
the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means.
They
believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to
be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as
you
will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery
and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly,
discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords
ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious
doctrine;
that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public
discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental
principle of the American government. They recognized the risks
to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that
order
cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction;
that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination;
that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that
hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in
the opportunity
to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and
that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing
in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they
eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its
worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities,
they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly
should
be guaranteed.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free
speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is
the function of speech to free men
from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech,
there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free
speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger
apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the
evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law tends
in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of
it. Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions
of approval add
to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism
increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even
advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a
justification for denying
free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing
to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference
between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling
and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear
and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence
was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished
reason to
believe that such advocacy was then contemplated.

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not
fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To
courageous,
self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning
applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from
speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended
is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion.
If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies,
to
avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more
speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such
must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. Such, in my
opinion, is the command of the Constitution.